Plagued with knee pain? Find out why

Being one of the larger joints, the knees supports the entire weight of the body. It consists of three different bones, the lower end of the femur and the upper ends of the tibia and fibula. Acting as a hinge joint ,it is only capable of moving forwards and backwards, similar to that of a door. Pressuring your knees sideways or pushing it in the wrong direction, can end up hurting them. Our daily activies such as walking and climbing stairs as well as exercising results in constant wear and tear of our knees. In a single lifetime, our knees perform over and above its capacity. Besides the degeneration from overuse, injury, infection and age can result in acute knee pain in joints.

So how does this knee pain come about? The cartilage holding the knee bones breaks down and exposes parts of the bone underneath. This results in the raw nerves previously being protected by cartilages to be exposed and causes acute knee joint pain. Not only that, bits of broken cartilage can also get trapped in the joint. When that occurs, movement can cause sudden pain and the joint can get locked. Due to the active lifestyle of the young, dislocation and injuries are more common among them, especially with sports like basketball and football. Both our knees are only physically capable of supporting a certain amount of weight and during intense activities, our knees are forced to s upport the weight of the entire body between them. At times, instead of the whole joint, the area near the patella gets worn out and becomes irregular. As it rubs against the bones underneath, it results in terrible knee joint pain with movement.

There may be many reasons why someone develop knee pains.

The increased weight from obesity causes the knees to degenerate more rapidly.

Your gait and posture may cause one side to wear out faster than the other and the entire joint may get swollen making walking painful.

Children seldom develop such pain without injury or a fracture however with the aged, knee pains are common due to arthritis.

People that have gout may also experience a painful knee joint, so it is a good thing to keep a lookout for your uric acid levels.